Wake Up! Bush Is Serious

by Paul Craig Roberts

Readers in numbers beyond my ability to reply individually
have challenged me whether President Bush's inaugural speech is a statement
of his intentions or merely a celebration of himself and American democracy. Surely
Bush doesn't believe America has the power to remake the world in its own
image other than by being an example for others to follow?

The answer is that it doesn't matter whether Bush believes, or even understands,
what he said. The neoconservatives believe it, and they control the Bush administration.

On the heels of Bush's speech, neocon Robert Kagan used his column in the Washington
Post to set Bush's inaugural speech in stone as U.S. foreign policy. Kagan
wrote: "The goal of American foreign policy is now to spread democracy,
for its own sake, for reasons that transcend specific threats. In short, Bush
has unmoored his foreign policy from the war on terrorism."

This is precisely the goal of the neocons. It is why the neocons orchestrated
"intelligence" and propaganda in order to bring about the invasion
of Iraq, a country whose secular ruler suppressed terrorism. The neocons' writings
clearly state their goal
and long predate the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Their agenda is independent
of "the war on terror." Many of those who signed the neocon strategy
documents hold presidential appointments in the Bush administration and are
the administration's most powerful members.

If Bush were in control or had a brain, he would have shut Cheney up and fired
all the neocons who produced the Iraqi disaster. Instead, despite the Iraqi
mess, the Bush administration is publicly threatening to attack Iran, a country
that has committed no terrorist or aggressive act toward the U.S. The Pentagon
has been ordered to prepare plans. Apparently, the U.S. has already inserted
special forces into Iran to gather intelligence.

The neoconservatives are Jacobins. The neocons are the greatest threat America
has ever faced, and they have the reins of power. Americans need to wake up
to this fact and stop indulging their macho "kick their Muslim butts"
fantasies and their "end times" Rapture fantasies.

The Bush administration is not establishing any democracies. It is starting
a war that will last a generation. That is the neocon plan. They have put their
intentions in writing just as Hitler did. It is no protection that their plan
is detached from reality. Robespierre was detached from reality, and that did
not stop him. So were Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. People with power
in their hands who are detached from reality are the most dangerous people of
all. The delusional quality of their rantings disarms people from taking them
seriously: "Oh, they couldn't mean that." But they do.

Paul Craig Roberts
wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall
Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National
Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including
The
Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has
held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon
chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous
scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions.
He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award
and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal
of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell.

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